I told you so 24 Oct 2008 I told you so 1: High cost of internet filtering and controls stricter than Iran’s, oh and critics bullied. I told you so 2: Terrorism laws unsafe, court rejects charge of breaking laws that did not exist when the “crime” was done Censorship Internet filtering Politics Race and politics Technology
General Science Science eats its seed corn 28 Oct 2009 An essay in PLoS Biology observes that the state of granting in science is having a chilling effect on research, by selecting for a lack of originality and allowing too short a time frame to plan and undertake research. As a result, scientists are dropping out of doing science altogether… Read More
History John Ray on species fixity and race 19 Sep 202019 Sep 2020 For since in nature the number of species is fixed and determined, since ‘God on the sixth day rested from all his labour’, that is, from the creation of new species, however infinite might be the number of plants varying in colour and multiplicity of flower, with new ones arising… Read More
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Rise of the Planet of the Moralists 5: Social Dominance and Power 2 Nov 20112 Nov 2011 Rise of the Planet of the Moralists Series1: Introduction2: Chains and Trees 3: Clades and grades4: Predicting traits5: Social dominance and power Thus far we have focused on the differences between human beings and apes, and the ways we should expect to find each species behave. What do all apes… Read More
Maybe, just maybe, this will start the process of dismantling the terrorism laws, but I’m not holding my breath.
This is why so many Americans want to keep the right to have weapons – at the end of the day, people have no means to protect themselves againt the government. I mean, the police and the army obey the government, not the population. So what is a people to do if its government unduly deprives it of its fundamental rights? In my opinion, there’s no better protection than for the government to know that it is surrounded by millions of armed citizens. For the government, aggressing the people would be like killing a cop in a police station. In theory anyway… That reasoning may sound a little naive, but keep in mind that at the end of the day, we do rely on force (the police, the army) to protect ourselves against other citizens or against people from other countries, so relying on force to protect ourselves against a government is only a continuation of that reasoning.